Pat Caputo - 5 factors with Ken Holland remaining Red Wings GM

1. I would not have brought back Ken Holland as Red Wings’ general manager - I felt the right move would have been to place him in a different position within the organization out of respect for his past work. If Holland, whose two-year contract was announced before the Red Wings’ season finale Saturday night, had been given an extension at the end of last season, I would have been outraged. He had a long streak of years during which the list of his bad decisions far outweighed good ones. To me, that still should have been the deciding factor whether to retain him in his current capacity.

2. I am not nearly as outraged as I would have been a year ago - Holland has stopped the imprudent message that any sort of rebuild is so painful it would not be remotely tolerable. He stood up to pressure to retain Petr Mrazek and sign Andreas Athanasiou long-term, which would have been ill-advised. He did sign Tomas Tatar to one of his typically bad, overvalued contracts last off-season, but at least it didn’t have a no-trade clause, so Holland got out of it by making a solid deal with Las Vegas which netted multiple draft picks, including a first-rounder. Young, current Red Wings, first-round picks Dylan Larkin and Anthony Mantha, have value beyond the 15th and 20th overall spots they were taken in the NHL Draft. Recent early-round choices such Michael Rasmussen, Dennis Cholowski and Gustav Lindstrom are making significant progress. So has recent second-round pick Filip Hronek. Cholowski, Hronek and Lindstrom are defensemen, which makes it especially important given the Red Wings’ issues there since Nicklas Lidstrom retired.

3. The Red Wings still have significant problems to deal with, most caused by Holland - The Red Wings are stuck with an incredible number of bad-value contracts in a hard salary cap league. They are paying a lot of money, for too many years to too many players, who would be third- or fourth-line forwards, or last-pairing defensemen at this stage of their careers on good teams. The players that fall under this category include Henrik Zetterberg, Niklas Kronwall, Danny DeKeyser, Justin Abdelkader, Jonathan Ericsson and Frans Nielsen. The trade of Tatar and Mike Green’s pending free agency provide the only relief. Mrazek was set to be a restricted free agent at a high rate, and the Red Wings weren’t going to retain him before his trade to Philadelphia. But the Red Wings are at a point where they have to sign Larkin and Mantha long term. They will still be cap-strapped the next few seasons.

4. There is a silver-lining to this - It’s at least the Red Wings veterans with the over-valued deals still play exceptionally hard. They care about the game, and the Red Wings’ tradition. It should help during the transitional period. Zetterberg is a terrific captain, who plays hard every night and is willing to call out his young teammates when necessary.

Holland needs to display he can make value-for-value trades involving players from other organizations, not just draft picks. Athanasiou and Gustav Nyquist have value and should be moved.

5. Evaluating Red Wings’ coach Jeff Blashill has been very difficult - Blashill will be back next season, but whether he is the long-range answer as coach remains the great unknown. He inherited a very difficult situation. He was replacing a future Hall-of-Famer, Mike Babcock, and with a declining team. Blashill has displayed the spine to hold the Red Wings’ younger players accountable, but at times his decision-making involving speciality units and line combinations could be better. His team didn’t quit on him, though.